Richard Amesbury

William Kingdon Clifford famously argued that "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." His ethics of belief can be construed as involving two distinct theses—a moral claim (that it is wrong to hold beliefs to which one is not entitled) and an epistemological claim (that entitlement is always a function of evidential support). Although I reject the (universality of the) epistemological claim, I argue that something deserving of the name "ethics of belief" can nevertheless be preserved. However, in the second half of the paper I argue that Clifford's response to the problem of unethical belief is insufficiently attentive to the role played by self-deception in the formation of unethical beliefs. By contrasting the first-person perspective of a doxastic agent with the third-person perspective of an outside observer, I argue that unethical belief is a symptom of deficiencies of character: fix these, and belief will fix itself. I suggest that the moral intuitions implicit in our response to examples of unethical belief (like Clifford's famous example of the ship owner) can better be accounted for in terms of a non-evidentialist virtue ethics of belief-formation, and that such an account can survive the rejection of strong versions of doxastic voluntarism

The appropriate application of Wittgenstein's thought to problems in the philosophy of religion has long been debated. A body of emerging scholarship argues that the philosophers of religion who pioneered this application are guilty of having misunderstood and distorted Wittgenstein's thought. This paper seeks to counter these charges by arguing that they generally depend on either construals of Wittgenstein's thought that are themselves implausible or misreadings of the philosophers against whom they are levied. Special attention is given to accusations of fideism, quietism, expressivism, and positivism, as well as to the work of Phillips, Winch, and Rhees.

In the late nineteenth century, European philosophical theologians concerned about the perceived threat of secularity played a crucial role in the construction of the category of ‘religion,’ conceived as a transcultural universal, the genus of which the so-called ‘world religions’ are species. By reading the work of the late John Hick (1922–2012), the most influential contemporary philosophical advocate of religious pluralism, through an historically informed hermeneutic of suspicion, this paper argues that orientalist-derived understandings of religion continue to play a significant (though often unacknowledged) role within the philosophy of religion today. Though couched in the language of pluralism, Hick’s later work in the philosophy of religion functions apologetically to maintain a version of the religious–secular distinction that, while theologically and politically loaded, is, I show, philosophically arbitrary. Moving the philosophy of religion beyond Eurocentrism, I argue, will require freeing it from the logic of the modern understanding of religion

New cross-cultural approaches to philosophy of religion seek to move it beyond the preoccupations of Christian theology and the abstractions of ‘classical theism’, towards an appreciation of a broader range of religious phenomena. But if the concept of religion is itself the product of extrapolation from modern, Western, Christian understandings, disseminated through colonial encounter, does the new philosophy of religion simply reproduce the deficiencies of the old, under the guise of a universalizing, albeit culturally and historically particular, category? This article argues that it is necessary to interrogate the secular episteme within which religion is thematized as a discrete topos.

D. Z. Phillips’ work in philosophy was animated by his interest in the diversity and heterogeneity of moral and religious perspectives and his antipathy towards philosophical theories that afford this variety little or no conceptual space. In contrast to what he perceived as essentialist efforts to promote certain viewpoints and to disparage others, Phillips championed a “contemplative conception” of philosophy, according to which the philosopher's aim is neither to underwrite nor to undermine but to understand. This paper argues that philosophy, while disinterested in its aims, nevertheless derives its elucidatory force from the normative contexts within which it is practised and read

What does it mean for ethics to say, as Wittgenstein did, that philosophy “leaves everything as it is”? Though clearly absorbed with ethical questions throughout his life and work, Wittgenstein's remarks about the subject do not easily lend themselves to summation or theorizing. Although many moral philosophers cite the influence or inspiration of Wittgenstein, there is little agreement about precisely what it means to do ethics in the light of Wittgenstein. Ethics after Wittgenstein brings together an international cohort of leading scholars in the field to address this problem. The chapters advance a conception of philosophical ethics characterized by an attention to detail, meaning and importance which itself makes ethical demands on its practitioners. Working in conversation with literature and film, engaging deeply with anthropology and critical theory, and addressing contemporary problems from racialized sexual violence against women to the Islamic State, these contributors reclaim Wittgenstein's legacy as an indispensable resource for contemporary ethics.

D. Z. Phillips’ work in philosophy was animated by his interest in the diversity and heterogeneity of moral and religious perspectives and his antipathy towards philosophical theories that afford this variety little or no conceptual space. In contrast to what he perceived as essentialist efforts to promote certain viewpoints and to disparage others, Phillips championed a “contemplative conception” of philosophy, according to which the philosopher's aim is neither to underwrite nor to undermine but to understand. This paper argues that philosophy, while disinterested in its aims, nevertheless derives its elucidatory force from the normative contexts within which it is practised and read.

So-called democratic states rest upon acts of violence and exclusion which cannot themselves be justified democratically. Yet, much contemporary political theory takes these configurations for granted as the context for philo- sophical reflection. This paper explores some of the spatio-temporal paradoxes of popular sovereignty as conventionally understood – i.e., as the authorization of government through the consent of “the people.” I argue that, instead of treat- ing the borders of popular sovereignty as given, political philosophy would ben- efit from greater attention to their continual contestation and critique.

One of the most distinctive and notorious characteristics of moral discourse is the pervasive and apparently interminable nature of the disagreement by which it seems to be riven. Many philosophers have argued that this disagreement can be traced to the lack of any underlying consensus on the considerations that might relevantly be brought to bear in a moral argument. According to this account, moral disagreement cannot be settled in light of any shared procedure, since what constitutes a valid moral "reason" is precisely what is in dispute. By attributing disagreement in conclusions to the incommensurability of the practices out of which the parties to a dispute argue, such a view threatens to undermine the possibility of rational criticism. My dissertation questions the generality of this account by arguing that what distinguishes moral from epistemic discourse is not the absence of a procedure that can be shared by both parties to a dispute, but the presence of a shared procedure that allows for disagreement at the level of conclusions. If what makes a scientific conclusion rational is its having been arrived at by means of an established argumentative procedure, then moral conclusions may be rational for precisely the same reason. By emphasizing the agreements in practice that can underlie disagreements in conclusions---agreements that allow us to disagree---the account I offer preserves the possibility of rational criticism while nevertheless allowing for the possibility that disagreement may persist. In light of this account I offer philosophical critiques of both Habermasian discourse ethics and Derridean deconstruction and argue instead for both a conception of our moral practices that is broad enough to accommodate multiple points of view on controversial issues and a conception of moral philosophy according to which the philosopher's job is neither to underwrite nor to undermine these practices, but to seek to understand them. If, as I argue, a capacity for dissent and criticism is, as it were, built right into the structure of moral discourse, then a contemplative philosophical approach to this discourse need not entail moral conservatism or quietism